Gold Rush

This Street-Driven ’65 Dodge Altered-wheelbase AFX Tribute Will Take You Back to the Golden Age of Drag Racing.

- Steve Magnante

According to the NHRA’s recent yearlong promotional program and historical celebration, 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of the Funny Car. According to the house that Wally Parks built, the 1966 Lincoln-Mercury—funded mini-fleet of four flip-top Comet Cyclones marked the birth of the Funny Car. Mark Tyrol begs to differ. With plenty of enthusiasm he says: “The NHRA has forgotten all about the 1965 altered wheelbase Mopars!” Then again, saying 2016 marked the 51st anniversary of the Funny Car doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

But history tells us the first public appearance of altered wheelbase, late model dragstrip machinery occurred on January 29, 1965, at Beeline Dragway in Phoenix, Arizona, a full year before Lincoln-Mercury introduced the tube-framed, plastic-bodied Funny Car architecture we still have today. On that breezy desert day, four Plymouths and three Dodges introduced the Beeline crowd to the sight of oddly proportioned, altered-wheelbase door-slammers packing 600-plus horsepower.

These cars were the start of a two-year fever that spawned hundreds of copycat door slammers based on Mopar and non- Mopar host vehicles. Dragstrip announcers and promoters alike quickly defined them as Funny Cars because of their odd proportions, and a legend was born. Getting back to Chrysler’s first salvo, a thorough review of the NHRA rule book mentioned nothing against the relocation of wheels beneath the body shell. That detail was of great interest to Ramchargers members and Chrysler performance engineers Tom Hoover and Jim Thornton.